11 ms·

I know many musicians who love using Teenage Engineerings products for making music, performing live etc. However, I do think there is a case to be made for fa

I know many musicians who love using Teenage Engineerings products for making music, performing live etc. However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. At the very least, Teenage Engineering hardware is generally very well designed, high quality and built to last. At least this product has some creative spirit behind it. I'm in love with the merge of Medieval and Modern Electronic here! For an example of excessive consumerism, look no further than the Eurorack[1] space. They don't call it Eurocrack for nothing! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurorack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurorack

brtkdotse 2y ago
> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. Is that such a bad thing? It’s supposed to be a hobby, if geeking out on gear relaxes you you shouldn’t have to feel bad for not being productive with it.
- fellerts 2y ago
  Not at all! I'm reminded of this blog post: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/04/20/hobbies.html https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/04/20/hobbies.html
- lewisflude 2y ago
  Many of my hobbies (mechanical keyboards, flashlights, guitar pedals) have been addictive and going as incredibly deep as I have has made me appreciate each item to a new degree.
- wintermutestwin 2y ago
  I am a shitty bedroom guitarist that has pro-level gear that I get endless hours of enjoyment from buying/selling and "knob turning." I probably spend 50% of my guitar hobby time on non-playing activities and it all brings me much joy. The fact that there are tons of consumers like me makes this gear more affordable for everyone, including low level artists.
  - brtkdotse 2y ago
    > endless hours of enjoyment from buying/selling I get a bunch of satisfaction purchasing used high end gear, owning it for a few months and then selling it for more or less what I bought it for. I usually get some nice social interaction with the seller/buyer as a bonus.
isoprophlex 2y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurorack#/media/File%3AKeith_Fullerton_Whitmann_case_modular_eurorack_muffwiggler.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurorack#/media/File%3AKeith... How the hell do you replicate your sounds between performances, recordings, etc. This must be the musical equivalent of people sending eachother zip files with source code instead of using git, lol. EDIT: don't get me wrong, not dissing the approach! It looks glorious and I wish I could play with one once..!
- sixeyes 2y ago
  Many performers use a semi-permanent patch. You effectively build a synthesizer with exactly the affordances you want, and carry the thing to the gig patched up. (Those setups tend to focus a lot of cable management too, lol, so that you can actually reach the controls) Or, some do improvised live patching, in which the goal is NOT to replicate sounds.
- throwaway030 2y ago
  I'd say most performances on these are accompanied by a DAW. Then you just record it and re-use sounds between performances. For some instruments/tracks you probably want the freedom to play it live and accept that it sounds different between performances. In fact that's the whole appeal of it in my opinion.
- arnorhs 2y ago
  You don't (mostly, except by ear) and that's part of the allure of it.
- thih9 2y ago
  That’s up to you how you do it. You can sample certain sounds and perform with that instead. You can patch it once and never touch again. You can learn how to patch it exactly the same, even with 100s of cables. You can keep parts of the patch the same. Some modules can help, saving their internal state or communicating with other modules on their own. Etc.
- lewisflude 2y ago
  I like to take photos and sometimes write things down! In a sense you're assembling a sound sculpture. But once you've found a great sound and lost it, sometimes you end up finding something very similar but not quite 100%! You see this a lot with live performances from any electronic musician to be honest. Still, most of the time you find something incredible and it's gone as quickly as it appeared!
maccard 2y ago
> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. Have you ever met a guitarist[0], or a golfer? I play guitar, and as a teenager I spent _years_ playing a cheap encore guitar plugged into a no-name 15w amp imaginable with a zoom 505 [1]. I practiced for hours upon and hours and sounded awful. Now as an adult, I get to spend some money on the hobby and sound like what I thought I sounded like aged 15! [0] - https://www.guitarworld.com/features/gear-acquisition-syndrome https://www.guitarworld.com/features/gear-acquisition-syndro... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGKrBrCw-aQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGKrBrCw-aQ (not me, but representative)
- lewisflude 2y ago
  It also reminds me of how a lot of the most coveted guitars, pedals, amps weren't selected by the guitarists who made iconic because they had some sort of secret sauce in them, but literally because they were the cheapest/most convenient thing available at the time. Also, I love the sound of a good crunchy 15w practise amp. I think one day those old zoom pedals and the Line 6 bean will be highly coveted!
  - wintermutestwin 2y ago
    Old Zoom pedals are currently coveted as a good, cheap way to shoegaze...
  - whstl 2y ago
    It was like that with Jazzmasters and Big Muffs. And even Les Pauls in the 60s and 80s. They were just cheap and widely available used and out of fashion, but then someone started using it again and the prices just exploded.
    - lewisflude 2y ago
      The Mascis effect
- camillomiller 2y ago
TheFragenTaken 2y ago
GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) is very real, and talked about a lot in the music industry. There are books, and papers studying this.
- AstroJetson 2y ago
  Good thing that there is nothing like that in other hobbies like Woodworking, Ham Radio, etc.
  - zeristor 2y ago
    Astronomical telescopes, and photography are further examples
    - AstroJetson 2y ago
      Oh yea, 42nd Street Photo held 2nd and 3rd mortgages on my house for years.
lynx23 2y ago
What you describe is called GAS, Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Besides, Eurorack is even more dangerous when it comes to GAS.
pgt 2y ago
“Regular people use their speakers to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their speakers.” — Alan Parsons
- IAmGraydon 2y ago
  I’ve never heard that before. Hilarious and brilliant!
  - Bluestein 2y ago
    Seconded. Great quote.-
- bmitc 2y ago
  People in general are pretty good at finding ways to feel superior to someone else, and that includes both audiophiles and musicians in this case.
- donaldihunter 2y ago
  I don't think that was said by Alan Parsons. It was by a slashdotter in response to an Alan Parsons interview: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2663265&cid=38987087 https://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2663265&c...
  - pgt 2y ago
    Thanks, H/T to Tackhead then!
yungporko 2y ago
> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. that is literally the intention behind all modern music hardware (eurorack especially) i think. i've been a producer for nearly 20 years and i've still never seen anybody make genuinely good music with any of these things. not even once. these 30-40 year old "enthusiast" types getting 17 views on their 28 minute "generative ambient jam #236" videos are basically an unlimited cash cow.
- Wurdan 2y ago
  I'm a 30-40 year old with absolutely no interest in making music, but I want every single thing which crosses my news feed from Teenage Engineering. So yeah, that checks out.
- dartos 2y ago
  People make some good tracks with the OP-1. I think dipplo (a big edm artist) used the OP-1 in his live sets for a while.
- geethree 2y ago
  Hmm… “good” is relative. Lots of stuff out there Ciani has been a pioneer in this space since the 70’e https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Ciani https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Ciani Check out the boiler room set of https://caterinabarbieri.com/ https://caterinabarbieri.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W25FTlO42VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W25FTlO42VY Vogelsinger has pieces all over YouTube. https://helenevogelsinger.bandcamp.com/ https://helenevogelsinger.bandcamp.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYxheEGl2oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYxheEGl2oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W25FTlO42VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W25FTlO42VY Some others that come to mind: https://polypores.bandcamp.com/ https://polypores.bandcamp.com/ https://bluetech.bandcamp.com/music https://bluetech.bandcamp.com/music Evan B’s label for this music only https://www.behindtheskymusic.com/ https://www.behindtheskymusic.com/
- Retr0id 2y ago
  People with the talent/skills/motivation to make music will end up making music with whatever they can get their hands on, and for anyone who doesn't fall into that category, no amount of equipment purchasing will fix it.
tetha 2y ago
I kind of have the same thought. This very much looks interesting and I like the whole folk/medieval metal scene quite a lot. But the realist and the person in my who doesn't like spending money both agree: If $350 - $500 are on the table, I'm probably better off with a good keyboard with MIDI support, since it's a more open-ended and flexible tool. And my DAW can do a lot of the looping, looped recording, effects and such. But enough negativity, this thing still looks really, really cool.
0mp 2y ago
Teenage Engineering gear is not meant to last. It is an illusion created by how their product looks like and how it is marketed. Once the warranty expires, you won't be able to repair products like TX-6. I've gotten bitten by that myself. TE does not really provide much support to its users to help them maintain and repair this expensive gear.
kashyapc 2y ago
Very well said on gear-trap. Last night I was watching an old video[1] of the kind of gear Ólafur Arnalds uses. I was amazed and aghast at the amount of expensive "outboard" gear and other vintage hardware such as "compressors", "filter banks", "levelling amplifiers", Korg PS-3100, a vintage analog synthesizer which costs more than 20,000 (!) euros,tape recorders, etc. Many of these things I didn't even know existed. But I'm just a newbie to learning music. It's a privileged position to be in, to just acquire whatever vintage hardware, instead of resorting to emulated software to create the sounds. At least, he (and others like Nils Frahm) can justify it, as a highly successful professional musicians. But many hobbyist musicians seem to fall into the trap of, "if only I get that Roland Juno-60, I'll make more awesome music". [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=2jTHNuvuQC0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=2jTHNuvuQC0
- criddell 2y ago
  > "if only I get that Roland Juno-60, I'll make more awesome music" But you might! A new instrument can inspire you and make you want to play more music and that can lead to improvement. All things considered, the Medieval isn't all that expensive. All you are really risking is approx. $100 if buying new (because you can resell on eBay) and practically nothing if you buy it used.
  - kashyapc 2y ago
    I agree; a new instrument can inspire you. But many people tend to fall into the so-called "gear trap", especially those of us who work in tech. I was not referring to the "Medieval" in specific, but just lamenting about losing the forest for the trees. It's a bit like the monthly, "the perfect note-taking tool" discussion cycle we get into here on HN. If you're conscious of the potential gear trap, more power to you. :-)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

brtkdotse 2y ago

> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. Is that such a bad thing? It’s supposed to be a hobby, if geeking out on gear relaxes you you shouldn’t have to feel bad for not being productive with it.

fellerts 2y ago
Not at all! I'm reminded of this blog post: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/04/20/hobbies.html https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/04/20/hobbies.html
lewisflude 2y ago
Many of my hobbies (mechanical keyboards, flashlights, guitar pedals) have been addictive and going as incredibly deep as I have has made me appreciate each item to a new degree.
wintermutestwin 2y ago
I am a shitty bedroom guitarist that has pro-level gear that I get endless hours of enjoyment from buying/selling and "knob turning." I probably spend 50% of my guitar hobby time on non-playing activities and it all brings me much joy. The fact that there are tons of consumers like me makes this gear more affordable for everyone, including low level artists.
- brtkdotse 2y ago
  > endless hours of enjoyment from buying/selling I get a bunch of satisfaction purchasing used high end gear, owning it for a few months and then selling it for more or less what I bought it for. I usually get some nice social interaction with the seller/buyer as a bonus.

isoprophlex 2y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurorack#/media/File%3AKeith_Fullerton_Whitmann_case_modular_eurorack_muffwiggler.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurorack#/media/File%3AKeith... How the hell do you replicate your sounds between performances, recordings, etc. This must be the musical equivalent of people sending eachother zip files with source code instead of using git, lol. EDIT: don't get me wrong, not dissing the approach! It looks glorious and I wish I could play with one once..!

sixeyes 2y ago
Many performers use a semi-permanent patch. You effectively build a synthesizer with exactly the affordances you want, and carry the thing to the gig patched up. (Those setups tend to focus a lot of cable management too, lol, so that you can actually reach the controls) Or, some do improvised live patching, in which the goal is NOT to replicate sounds.
throwaway030 2y ago
I'd say most performances on these are accompanied by a DAW. Then you just record it and re-use sounds between performances. For some instruments/tracks you probably want the freedom to play it live and accept that it sounds different between performances. In fact that's the whole appeal of it in my opinion.
arnorhs 2y ago
You don't (mostly, except by ear) and that's part of the allure of it.
thih9 2y ago
That’s up to you how you do it. You can sample certain sounds and perform with that instead. You can patch it once and never touch again. You can learn how to patch it exactly the same, even with 100s of cables. You can keep parts of the patch the same. Some modules can help, saving their internal state or communicating with other modules on their own. Etc.
lewisflude 2y ago
I like to take photos and sometimes write things down! In a sense you're assembling a sound sculpture. But once you've found a great sound and lost it, sometimes you end up finding something very similar but not quite 100%! You see this a lot with live performances from any electronic musician to be honest. Still, most of the time you find something incredible and it's gone as quickly as it appeared!

maccard 2y ago

> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. Have you ever met a guitarist[0], or a golfer? I play guitar, and as a teenager I spent _years_ playing a cheap encore guitar plugged into a no-name 15w amp imaginable with a zoom 505 [1]. I practiced for hours upon and hours and sounded awful. Now as an adult, I get to spend some money on the hobby and sound like what I thought I sounded like aged 15! [0] - https://www.guitarworld.com/features/gear-acquisition-syndrome https://www.guitarworld.com/features/gear-acquisition-syndro... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGKrBrCw-aQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGKrBrCw-aQ (not me, but representative)

lewisflude 2y ago
It also reminds me of how a lot of the most coveted guitars, pedals, amps weren't selected by the guitarists who made iconic because they had some sort of secret sauce in them, but literally because they were the cheapest/most convenient thing available at the time. Also, I love the sound of a good crunchy 15w practise amp. I think one day those old zoom pedals and the Line 6 bean will be highly coveted!
- wintermutestwin 2y ago
  Old Zoom pedals are currently coveted as a good, cheap way to shoegaze...
- whstl 2y ago
  It was like that with Jazzmasters and Big Muffs. And even Les Pauls in the 60s and 80s. They were just cheap and widely available used and out of fashion, but then someone started using it again and the prices just exploded.
  - lewisflude 2y ago
    The Mascis effect
camillomiller 2y ago

TheFragenTaken 2y ago

GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) is very real, and talked about a lot in the music industry. There are books, and papers studying this.

AstroJetson 2y ago
Good thing that there is nothing like that in other hobbies like Woodworking, Ham Radio, etc.
- zeristor 2y ago
  Astronomical telescopes, and photography are further examples
  - AstroJetson 2y ago
    Oh yea, 42nd Street Photo held 2nd and 3rd mortgages on my house for years.

lynx23 2y ago

What you describe is called GAS, Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Besides, Eurorack is even more dangerous when it comes to GAS.

pgt 2y ago

“Regular people use their speakers to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their speakers.” — Alan Parsons

IAmGraydon 2y ago
I’ve never heard that before. Hilarious and brilliant!
- Bluestein 2y ago
  Seconded. Great quote.-
bmitc 2y ago
People in general are pretty good at finding ways to feel superior to someone else, and that includes both audiophiles and musicians in this case.
donaldihunter 2y ago
I don't think that was said by Alan Parsons. It was by a slashdotter in response to an Alan Parsons interview: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2663265&cid=38987087 https://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2663265&c...
- pgt 2y ago
  Thanks, H/T to Tackhead then!

yungporko 2y ago

> However, I do think there is a case to be made for falling into the trap of being more interested in the gear than the thing you're meant to do with the gear. that is literally the intention behind all modern music hardware (eurorack especially) i think. i've been a producer for nearly 20 years and i've still never seen anybody make genuinely good music with any of these things. not even once. these 30-40 year old "enthusiast" types getting 17 views on their 28 minute "generative ambient jam #236" videos are basically an unlimited cash cow.

Wurdan 2y ago
I'm a 30-40 year old with absolutely no interest in making music, but I want every single thing which crosses my news feed from Teenage Engineering. So yeah, that checks out.
dartos 2y ago
People make some good tracks with the OP-1. I think dipplo (a big edm artist) used the OP-1 in his live sets for a while.
geethree 2y ago
Hmm… “good” is relative. Lots of stuff out there Ciani has been a pioneer in this space since the 70’e https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Ciani https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Ciani Check out the boiler room set of https://caterinabarbieri.com/ https://caterinabarbieri.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W25FTlO42VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W25FTlO42VY Vogelsinger has pieces all over YouTube. https://helenevogelsinger.bandcamp.com/ https://helenevogelsinger.bandcamp.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYxheEGl2oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYxheEGl2oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W25FTlO42VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W25FTlO42VY Some others that come to mind: https://polypores.bandcamp.com/ https://polypores.bandcamp.com/ https://bluetech.bandcamp.com/music https://bluetech.bandcamp.com/music Evan B’s label for this music only https://www.behindtheskymusic.com/ https://www.behindtheskymusic.com/
Retr0id 2y ago
People with the talent/skills/motivation to make music will end up making music with whatever they can get their hands on, and for anyone who doesn't fall into that category, no amount of equipment purchasing will fix it.

tetha 2y ago

I kind of have the same thought. This very much looks interesting and I like the whole folk/medieval metal scene quite a lot. But the realist and the person in my who doesn't like spending money both agree: If $350 - $500 are on the table, I'm probably better off with a good keyboard with MIDI support, since it's a more open-ended and flexible tool. And my DAW can do a lot of the looping, looped recording, effects and such. But enough negativity, this thing still looks really, really cool.

0mp 2y ago

Teenage Engineering gear is not meant to last. It is an illusion created by how their product looks like and how it is marketed. Once the warranty expires, you won't be able to repair products like TX-6. I've gotten bitten by that myself. TE does not really provide much support to its users to help them maintain and repair this expensive gear.

kashyapc 2y ago

Very well said on gear-trap. Last night I was watching an old video[1] of the kind of gear Ólafur Arnalds uses. I was amazed and aghast at the amount of expensive "outboard" gear and other vintage hardware such as "compressors", "filter banks", "levelling amplifiers", Korg PS-3100, a vintage analog synthesizer which costs more than 20,000 (!) euros,tape recorders, etc. Many of these things I didn't even know existed. But I'm just a newbie to learning music. It's a privileged position to be in, to just acquire whatever vintage hardware, instead of resorting to emulated software to create the sounds. At least, he (and others like Nils Frahm) can justify it, as a highly successful professional musicians. But many hobbyist musicians seem to fall into the trap of, "if only I get that Roland Juno-60, I'll make more awesome music". [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=2jTHNuvuQC0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=2jTHNuvuQC0

criddell 2y ago
> "if only I get that Roland Juno-60, I'll make more awesome music" But you might! A new instrument can inspire you and make you want to play more music and that can lead to improvement. All things considered, the Medieval isn't all that expensive. All you are really risking is approx. $100 if buying new (because you can resell on eBay) and practically nothing if you buy it used.
- kashyapc 2y ago
  I agree; a new instrument can inspire you. But many people tend to fall into the so-called "gear trap", especially those of us who work in tech. I was not referring to the "Medieval" in specific, but just lamenting about losing the forest for the trees. It's a bit like the monthly, "the perfect note-taking tool" discussion cycle we get into here on HN. If you're conscious of the potential gear trap, more power to you. :-)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]